I got a copy of Lemmings for DOS around 1993 because it came bundled with a piece of hardware. I think it was my Sound Blaster 2, but I'm not positive. I played through all 30 Fun levels and started on the Tricky levels, but got bored with it, but I really enjoyed the custom DOS music for the game.

I'm not sure where my disk went, but I do remember the game had a verification mechanism where it required the original disk to be in the diskette drive to play, and copies of the disk wouldn't work. A pretty devious anti-piracy measure for the time, but it didn't stop people from altering the game's binaries to bypass the check.

Contents

Status

Review

Good

The background graphics look amazing, and the lemming animations are great.

Despite most of the music being arrangements of children's songs, they're pretty good, and the original music is great.

The point-and-click interface is great.

Some later stages use the same map, but give you a limited set of lemmings to work with, which forces you to have to solve the same puzzle in a more convoluted manner, which I think is a great idea.

Bad

The instruments used in the Amiga version are really obnoxious.

Ugly

In the final levels, the game becomes less about solving a puzzle and more about having to click on the exact pixel at the exact second. This isn't fun, it's tedious.

Box Art

This is the original box art used by the Amiga. Most ports use this art work, only with variations on the layout. I love the multitude of lemmings in the background all doing silly things. My favorite art.

The UK Macintosh art shows a deviant lemming with a pick-axe and a lit stick of TNT with various lemmings falling to their deaths. Kind of disturbing!

The European Mega Drive box shows a line of lemmings cheerfully jumping off a cliff to their deaths. It's also a bit disturbing.

The Game Gear box art shows a bunch of copied umbrella lemmings smiling at a single lemming without an umbrella falling to his death. Again, disturbing.